It was his this-matter-is-finished tone of voice. She’d seen him shut down heated boardroom arguments with it several times, but tonight, after what they’d shared, she refused to be intimidated.
“Considering you spend all your time at the office, it doesn’t seem like nothing,” she ventured. He might not answer, but she needed to try. She’d shared so much of herself with him, all that stuff about her mom, and now she wanted something in return. A little piece of the enigmatic man who gave the appearance of being cold and aloof. Tonight, he’d made her body burn with his sexual prowess and her heart melt with his kindness. She wanted to know him better.
Max exhaled. “It’s a token. An empty promise I made to myself.”
It was more than she’d expected, so she raked her fingers through the smattering of hair on his chest, stroking them back and forth in a lazy rhythm, hoping the silence might coax something further from him.
“My father took advantage of...someone I brought to his attention. A man I respected and greatly admired. He was a brilliant software developer. My father blackmailed him, swindled his intellectual property from him and held him hostage with legalities, until he was just a wrecked shell of a man. So wrecked that he broke a decade of sobriety and drove his car into a pole.”
Her palm stilled over his heart, poor comfort, but she needed to touch him. Needed him to know she was there. He stared at her hand on his skin, his expression both blank and quizzical, as though he wasn’t quite in the present, but he didn’t understand how he’d gotten there.
“Max,” she said softly.
He shook his head, and his eyes cleared. “There’s a local charity that takes care of families who’ve lost someone to drunk driving. They provide them with therapy, financial assistance, whatever they need, regardless of whether their loved one was the victim or the perpetrator.”
“And you donate your salary.”
His nod was almost imperceptible. Something about the specificity of the charity made her heart pinch. “Did he have children?”
The words were a long time coming, and they held an edge of pain, as evidenced by the tightness in Max’s voice. “A son. Aidan.”
“You know him?”
“We were friends. Before I took over Whitfield Industries.”
Something about the way he said it warned her pursuing it further would be a dead end.
“I’m so sorry.” Beneath her fingers, his muscles relaxed a fraction. With relief that she hadn’t pressed the issue? “That’s an incredible thing you’re doing, supporting that charity in his honor.”
He shook his head, rejecting the praise. “It isn’t. It doesn’t change anything. It certainly doesn’t fix anything. But I’ve already benefitted too much from the misfortune of others.”
She’d known Max was special. From the moment she’d met him, he’d seemed capable, in control. But until tonight, she hadn’t imagined the depth of his strength. The profundity of his character.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a good man. I’m not, Emma. Don’t fool yourself. I’m just like my father.”
The idea that he thought he was anything like Charles Whitfield leant heat to her voice. “You’re nothing like him.”
“I’m exactly like him. I put business before everything. My father should be rotting in jail for what he did to John Beckett.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that it shocked her. No rage. His voice was even and modulated, as though he were giving her the weather report.
“But instead of turning him in, I blackmailed him into retirement, which at the time, struck me as poetic justice. And I told myself I did it so my sister wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout of toppling the only parent who ever gave her the time of day. So that my mother wouldn’t have to survive another scandal. But the truth is, I did it so there’d still be a business for me to take over when I kicked his ass out. And worst of all, I betrayed my best friend to do it.”
Max shrugged at the summation, a momentary flash of something real peeking out from behind the crack in the armor. “Bringing SecurePay to the world, making sure that John’s contribution sees the light of day, is one way I atone for what I’ve done. Letting Aidan hate me for it is the other.”
“Have you ever tried to explain what happened?” Emma asked. “I’m sure if Aidan knew why you—”
“I don’t do it for forgiveness, Emma. I made my choice, and I live with it. I don’t believe in second chances. Some things can’t be fixed.”
She felt his retreat, the tightening of his muscles, the emotional distance he was trying to erect between them. Emma knew all too well what it was like to have regrets that ate at you. To face reality when all you wanted to do was curl up in a ball and hide. And part of her wanted to give him the space he obviously needed.
But she didn’t. Something in her chest keened at the loss of the honesty of the moment they’d just shared, a moment that transcended all the complications that had happened before it. Right now, they were just two people, not a boss and employee, not the betrayed and the betrayer, just a man and a woman.
And Emma wanted it back, for however briefly it might last.
“Don’t leave me yet,” she said, not sure if he’d understand what she meant, but desperate to make him. Because she couldn’t leave him. Not while he was hurting.
Max had been shouldering too many burdens all by himself for far too long. And while Emma knew he’d reject sympathy, she wanted to give him comfort.
To that end, she tucked closer to his side, wrapping an arm around him in as close an approximation of a hug as she could get from this position, and pressed her lips to his chest, right above his heart.
He went deadly still.
“Emma...” He said her name uncertainly, like he wasn’t sure if it was a warning or a plea. She didn’t let go, though. She just lay there, hugging him, until the stiffness in his muscles receded. Until she felt his breathing even out beneath her cheek.
Only then did she loosen her grip on him, so she could push up on her elbows and look into his eyes. To see for herself that Max was okay. That he was himself again.
He wasn’t. Not exactly. His expression was hard, almost dark, and his gaze searched her face, looking for what, she didn’t know.
But when he reached up, the hand that cupped her jaw was gentle. His thumb traced her bottom lip. She sighed at the touch, the soft sound kindling a spark in those enigmatic amber eyes.
And that spark set her body ablaze.
“I can’t get enough of you.”
His words were gravel. They scraped against her nerve endings, and the sweet thrill of arousal turned insistent. His fingers dug into her hip and he rolled her beneath him, chest heaving as he stared down at her, and what she saw in his face stole her breath.
Before, he’d looked at her with desire, but now he looked at her like he needed her, not just any woman, but her.
It was world shaking.
And then he canted his hips and pushed deep, and Emma cried out as she wrapped her arms around him, clinging as tightly as she could, afraid if she didn’t, she might be swept away completely.
* * *
Emma was too tired to discern more than the vague notion of someone moving around.
She and Max had made love half the night, and she’d slept snuggled against his side. In fact, it was the sudden realization that he wasn’t there that woke her in the first place.
“What time is it?” she asked, her voice thick and groggy.
“Too early for you to be up. I was trying not to wake you.”
She liked hearing Max’s deep baritone in the morning. Knowing he’d spent the night next to her.
“But I told Brennan and Hastings I’d meet them at seven, so I have to leave soon. Sully will come back for you.”
He glanced over his shoulder as he finished his Windsor knot. “Breakfast.”
It was the tie, she realized. The one she’d used to bind his wrists the night he’d trusted her with one of his deepest secrets. It looked good on him.
He grabbed his suit jacket from the garment bag on the back of the door and then slid into it. It fit his broad shoulders to perfection.
Who’d have thought it could be so erotic watching a man put clothes on?
She pulled the sheet over her breasts, before she sat up against the headboard. “You got breakfast and a suit delivered?”
“That’s the point of having money. Getting what you want, when you want it.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed the white bakery box, untying the pretty raffia bow. “I’d be more impressed if your suits weren’t right next door. This box is probably full of pillow mints or something,” she joked.
Then the white edges of cardboard sprang open, revealing its contents.
Her brow creased as she looked up at the powerful man in the suit that cost more than three-months’ rent at her old apartment. “But how?”
“I sent Sully to a little Croatian bakery I found.” He slipped his watch onto his left wrist, clasping it with quick, efficient movements.
Her heart lurched against her ribs. And that was before he walked over to the bed, and then pressed a kiss to her forehead as he stole one of the prettily iced medenjaci cookies from the box and popped it into his mouth.
He chewed thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing. “These are really good.” He grabbed two more. “I can see why your dad loved your mom’s cookies so much.”
The casual mention of her family slayed her.
She didn’t like the warmth seeping through her chest.
Because this wasn’t lust.
It was suspiciously more like another L word.
The scary one.
And if she was in love with Max, that made everything so much worse.
A knock at the hotel room door made him glance over his shoulder. “That must be housekeeping. I asked them to send someone up to take care of the kitchen.”
Max walked over to the dresser to grab his wallet.
“I’ll let them in on my way out. See you at work?”
He asked the question like nothing had changed, like her whole world hadn’t just slid off its axis.
Emma couldn’t make her voice work to lie to him, so she nodded instead.
His answering smile stung like a thousand pin pricks.
She stared after him as he left the room, trying to fix the memory in her brain. In her heart. A perfect moment in time to hold close, to look back on after everything imploded.
Because she had to tell him.
She couldn’t keep pretending that she could outrun what she’d done. There was no direction that didn’t lead to what was happening right now.
I don’t believe in second chances. Some things can’t be fixed.
This, she realized, was one of those things. She’d screwed up with Max the minute she’d shaken Charles Whitfield’s hand.
Tears slipped down her cheeks at the consequences, and she hugged her knees to her chest.
It took a long time for the tears to stop. Even longer for her to find the strength to crawl out of bed.
Emma retrieved her purse from the decorative chair in the corner, and pushed the bedroom door closed on the sounds of someone doing the dishes.
Max would never forgive her for what she’d done. She’d betrayed him, and he was right: there was no fixing it. But maybe, just maybe, she could give him the second chance he deserved with Aidan. With himself.
Reaching into the zippered pocket in her leather tote, she extracted the burner phone Charles had given her, thumbs flying over the keypad.
The text message read: Grand Park fountain @ noon.
She hit Send.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I’VE TAKEN ALL your reports into consideration—” along with AJ’s, but Max didn’t tell that to the men sitting on the other side of his desk “—and I’ve decided to move forward with releasing SecurePay on Tuesday, as scheduled. I’ll expect regular updates in the days leading up to the launch.”
Brennan stared at him evenly, saying nothing. Hastings jumped amiably into the silence. “Understood. Gotta keep those shareholders happy. I keep trying to get this guy to take Soteria public—” Jesse thumbed in Brennan’s direction “—but he won’t bite.”
Brennan cut his partner a sidelong glance, and Hastings stopped babbling. “We have people monitoring the security feeds and firewall around the clock, and we’ll have updates to you twice daily, starting immediately. If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to contact either of us, twenty-four-seven.”
Max and Brennan stood, and Hastings followed their lead. With a round of handshakes, business was concluded, and Max was on to a second meeting with Vivienne, to fill her in on the morning’s results and make sure that there were no outstanding legal hiccups that might throw off the launch.
Then he briefed Kaylee on where things stood so she was prepared and ready for the day they unleashed SecurePay into the world. As he escorted his sister out of his office, he decided to see if Emma felt like joining him for lunch.
He’d been so busy that he hadn’t seen her since that morning, when she’d been sitting in bed with sleepy eyes and sex-tousled hair, naked under the sheet clutched to her breasts.
Or better yet, they could skip lunch.
“Sherri, can you get Emma on the phone for me?”
“I haven’t seen her today. Jim was looking for her earlier.”
Max frowned. That was strange. He pulled his cell phone from his inner breast pocket, but she hadn’t texted. He tried calling, and it went straight to voice mail.
Maybe she was sick. He glanced at his watch. He could head over to the hotel and check on her before his afternoon meeting.
“I’ll be back at one thirty,” he told Sherri, as he headed for the elevator. “If the marketing department drops off those proofs of the new campaign I asked for, just leave them on my desk.”
He spent the duration of the descent telling himself that this worry winding though his chest was ridiculous, that she was fine. Sherri might have missed her arrival, her battery could have died, maybe she’d used the contact info he’d forced her to take for his driver, and she was just running an errand...but when he emerged from the building, Sully was parked in his usual spot.
Damn.
Max strode toward his car, but before he reached it, a slight figure bumped into him, surprising him out of his tunnel vision. He steadied himself. “Are you oka...”
The question died on his lips as recognition hit. The black leather jacket, black jeans, black boots and a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, despite the California heat. He was familiar with the game. And the player.
“Jesus, AJ. I’d better still have my wallet.”
The woman grinned as she turned to face him, holding out the expensive brown leather. “Gotta keep the skills sharp.”
He grabbed it back, tucking it away. “I thought I paid you enough to render those skills extinct.”
“Sure you do. But if I forget all the moves, what good am I? I mean, if I can’t pick your pocket, I can’t finesse my way past your firewall, either. It’s all about the dance, you know?”
“I don’t have time to dance right now. What are you doing here?”
Her brown eyes turned serious, and Max didn’t like the resulting clench in his gut.
“I need to talk to y
ou.”
Max glanced back at the building that housed Whitfield Industries. She shouldn’t have come here. And he certainly couldn’t take her inside.
“Come on.”
He gave Sully the signal to stand down, and his bodyguard and driver lowered his big frame back into the car. Max hurried AJ to the vehicle and followed her inside.
Sully raised the privacy partition as he pulled away from the curb and just started driving, no explanations required. Max made a mental note to increase Sully’s bonus.
“Tell me.”
“Hello to you, too,” she said with an arched eyebrow, pulling the black hood down to reveal her raven curls.
Max returned the rebuke with an unimpressed look.
“Yeah, yeah. I followed the money.”
He frowned. “I thought you already did that. You said she checked out.”
AJ looked uncomfortable, fidgeting with the drawstring at her neck. It wasn’t like her.
“Not Emma’s money. Your dad’s.”
The announcement cold-cocked him.
“Turns out that the place taking care of her mom wasn’t just nice—it was really nice. Even the e-transfers with all the zeroes she sent weren’t coming close to taking care of the luxury-sized price tag.”
“My father.”
AJ nodded. “Emma might not be your bad guy on this hack, but she’s up to those pretty blue eyes in something shady.”
“And you’re sure—”
“They’re in cahoots? Colluding? In bed together?”
AJ flinched beneath the weight of his glower.
“Whoa. Bad choice of words, I see. Down boy. That was only meant in the figurative sense. But yeah. I think they’re connected. Nobody with your dad’s rep fronts several grand a month to a veritable stranger without getting something in return. And I did the math. Until you hired her, there are no links between the two of them, financial or otherwise. Which makes you the common denominator.”
Max couldn’t help but think back to his father showing up at the office. Charles Whitfield was a charming bastard, brilliant at making people feel comfortable. It was his superpower—make them like him, make them trust him, so they didn’t even realize he’d manipulated them until it was too late.
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